Lotus not happy about Litespeed’s “Team Lotus” Formula One 2010 entry

F3 team Litespeed will be participating in the Formula One along with a few other new teams like Campos Racing, Lola, Prodrive (future Aston Martin) and USGPE for the 2010 season. But get this – they will be calling themselves Team Lotus.

The team founded by ex-Lotus employees Nino Judge and Steve Kenchington wants to use the Lotus brand name to help the team secure a place on the grid. They say they’ve licensed it, but the real Lotus has come out with a statement today saying they have nothing to do with the team and may take action to protect its brand name. It could be that Litespeed is only still in negotiations to license the name and Lotus is not too happy about them going around announcing it without confirmation.

“Team Lotus” will use Cosworth engines and a chassis designed by a team led by former Toyota and Renault technical director Mike Gascoyne. They will be leasing the RTN factory in Hingham near the real Lotus.

After dabbling for years in the IT industry, Paul Tan initially began this site as a general blog covering various topics of personal interest. With an increasing number of readers paying rapt attention to the motoring stories, one thing led to another and the rest, as they say, is history. An avid electronic gadget aficionado as well as big-time coffee lover, he's also the executive producer of the Driven motoring TV programme.

Lotus should give Team Lotus a whole bunch of money and ask them to rename themselves "Team Proton"…

Then, they can bolt two Campro engines together at the crankshaft, reduce the bore / stroke to come up with a 2.4L V8 Campro engine, which will be reliable but – for some reason – has a weird torque dip between 3000 to 4000 rpm…

I just dont get it why teams would hire Mike Gascoyne? Ever since he left Renault for some reason, he hasn't been able to create a winning car. He has even being dropped by low performing teams and now being hired by Litespeed? This team , and any other team who employs him is heading towards the bottom of the timesheet…. period!

If I am the team owner, i wont be proud announcing mike as part of my team…

Of course Lotus are not happy. You think the public can tell the difference between unofficial Team Lotus and Lotus Cars? What if Team Lotus are tailenders, what would that do to Lotus Cars' reputation?

ppl wil pay millions jus to put their names on f1 cars , lotus should thank them for the free publicity! bt i see the point , if this new team always ends up like Force India Cars at the botom , thn u wont get much publicity..

ooo so not only china like to clone things… even mat salleh so called civilized people also simply take and use things like that aaa… i dont think this fella serious about competing in f1, there is other motive perhaps..

[quote comment="244127"]I just dont get it why teams would hire Mike Gascoyne? Ever since he left Renault for some reason, he hasn't been able to create a winning car. He has even being dropped by low performing teams and now being hired by Litespeed? This team , and any other team who employs him is heading towards the bottom of the timesheet…. period!

If I am the team owner, i wont be proud announcing mike as part of my team…[/quote]

lol. True I guess.

Ross Brawn meanwhile is 'the man' today. Somehow, every time I see him, he almost as if emits the same aura when you see Steve Jobs.

[quote comment="244156"][quote comment="244127"]I just dont get it why teams would hire Mike Gascoyne? Ever since he left Renault for some reason, he hasn't been able to create a winning car. He has even being dropped by low performing teams and now being hired by Litespeed? This team , and any other team who employs him is heading towards the bottom of the timesheet…. period!

If I am the team owner, i wont be proud announcing mike as part of my team…[/quote]

lol. True I guess.

Ross Brawn meanwhile is 'the man' today. Somehow, every time I see him, he almost as if emits the same aura when you see Steve Jobs.[/quote]

[quote comment="244171"][quote comment="244156"][quote comment="244127"]I just dont get it why teams would hire Mike Gascoyne? Ever since he left Renault for some reason, he hasn't been able to create a winning car. He has even being dropped by low performing teams and now being hired by Litespeed? This team , and any other team who employs him is heading towards the bottom of the timesheet…. period!

If I am the team owner, i wont be proud announcing mike as part of my team…[/quote]

lol. True I guess.

Ross Brawn meanwhile is 'the man' today. Somehow, every time I see him, he almost as if emits the same aura when you see Steve Jobs.[/quote]

actually, all those new teams are bidding for only 3 places available to new teams. So not all of them would be in the championship next year. That is unless some of the current teams actually follow through their threat of pulling out of F1.

A bunch of moronic low budget teams who doesnt seems to understand why F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports and why Indy, CART, F3, F2000, Formula Renault, Formula BMW etc exist.. If you dont have the money, stay where you are. Dont spoill F1. Its better to have even 8 quality teams in F1 rather than 15 half baked teams with a budget cap and different set of rules..

Sometimes money does matter but brains come first… salute to Brawn for making Honda look foolish.

[quote comment="244249"]A bunch of moronic low budget teams who doesnt seems to understand why F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports and why Indy, CART, F3, F2000, Formula Renault, Formula BMW etc exist.. If you dont have the money, stay where you are. Dont spoill F1. Its better to have even 8 quality teams in F1 rather than 15 half baked teams with a budget cap and different set of rules..[/quote]

Wahh dude you're talking like you're so high and mighty… I suspect you don't even touch the ground when you walk…

To suit your statement don't send our athletes to the Olympic since they are not competitive enough… since they will spoil the Olympic let them compete in SUKMA and SEA games only.

Halo Wak, I dont know why must you said as i don't even touch the ground when i walk. Do you know me?

Do you know anything about budget caps that the FIA proposing?

So, why lar we didnt participate in all games in the Olympics?? Is it because we have no money?? Or is it becoz WE ARE NOT COMPETITIVE ENOUGH?? Whats the point of having QUALIFYING ROUND for FIFA World Cup, ASIAN AFC Cup etc??

Might as well use taxpayers money and send all your Mat Rempits to MOTO GP. BTW, Brawn was already in the Honda Team in 2008. Its the technical rule changes that they capitalized (the confusion over the diffuser is one of them) and FYI, Honda was one of the biggest budget teams in F1.Duhhhh..

[quote comment="244394"]Halo Wak, I dont know why must you said as i don't even touch the ground when i walk. Do you know me?

Do you know anything about budget caps that the FIA proposing?

So, why lar we didnt participate in all games in the Olympics?? Is it because we have no money?? Or is it becoz WE ARE NOT COMPETITIVE ENOUGH?? Whats the point of having QUALIFYING ROUND for FIFA World Cup, ASIAN AFC Cup etc??

Might as well use taxpayers money and send all your Mat Rempits to MOTO GP. BTW, Brawn was already in the Honda Team in 2008. Its the technical rule changes that they capitalized (the confusion over the diffuser is one of them) and FYI, Honda was one of the biggest budget teams in F1.Duhhhh..[/quote]

[quote comment="244394"]Halo Wak, I dont know why must you said as i don't even touch the ground when i walk. Do you know me?

Do you know anything about budget caps that the FIA proposing?

So, why lar we didnt participate in all games in the Olympics?? Is it because we have no money?? Or is it becoz WE ARE NOT COMPETITIVE ENOUGH?? Whats the point of having QUALIFYING ROUND for FIFA World Cup, ASIAN AFC Cup etc??

Might as well use taxpayers money and send all your Mat Rempits to MOTO GP. BTW, Brawn was already in the Honda Team in 2008. Its the technical rule changes that they capitalized (the confusion over the diffuser is one of them) and FYI, Honda was one of the biggest budget teams in F1.Duhhhh..[/quote]

When I read that Government not linked directly nor indirectly, there's Petronas in the game and Petronas is a GLC… WTF?!!?

Anyway, link or not, I think this is a bunch of underdogs. I hope this will be a platform that truly helps Malaysian to create a team of our own that brings improvement to our automotive technology.

Maybe better Proton and a second chance for Lotus to regain its fame? CAMPRO CPS is too primitive but better than nothing. Hope that they learn something useful from the racetrack, fine-tune and down-tune to street legal and dump it into every Proton out there.

You can either post as a guest or have an option to register. Among the advantages of registering is once a name has been registered, a guest cannot post using that name. If you have an account, please login before commenting. If you wish to have a profile photo next to your name, register at Gravatar using the same e-mail address you use to comment.